Wednesday 23 September 2009

What are the best rules that you never use?

A quiet month so far, at least as far as wargaming and blogging. I began by having my gall bladder removed (don't worry I am not about to post any pictures). I have not done much since although this week I am starting to catch up on a little light basing. Sticking machine gun crews into tile cement, that sort of thing, nothing too strenuous.

So I thought I would pose a puzzle for my readers. We all have a bundle of rules that we never use. Now I am not asking what you don't like. That would be far too obvious and banal for the razor sharp intellects that gather here. No, what rules do you really like and admire but never, ever actually get around to using and,of course, why is that?

I can start the ball rolling with three sets.


Firstly the WRG set Corps de Armee, remember the blue covered one with an introduction by David Chandler. I poured over these for months studying them and thinking they were everything we could ever need. They were hugely influential on my thinking but I never did get round to playing them and I suspect now that they may well have been unplayable.

The second set is Howard Whitehouses 'Science v Pluck or too much for the Mahdi'. I have both editions and everything about this set screams FUN! I love to read it but never seem to have had the occasion to play it. I suspect the reason is that I play few games nowadays and when I do a more traditional game seems to be demanded by the occasion.

The last rule set I have chosen will no doubt cause some raised eyebrows but have to confess to having never played a game using Charles Grant's 'The Wargame'. Poured over it, loved the book but never played it. Wonderful rules but I have always used Charge by Lawford and Young. This may be because Charge was the second Wargaming book I ever bought, in 1969, but thirty years passed before I finally found a second hand copy of Charles Grant's book. As you can imagine I had become somewhat set in my ways by that time.

Well, as they say Coffee break over. Time to get back to spreading grouting on pennies, surely one of the most boring activities ever devised.